Out-of-Body Experience
by lonelyhomosexual
Summary: In which the Lady Cassandra goes searching for a new body and ends up in the middle of the Second Wizarding War...and in the body of Lord Voldemort himself.


It was not in the least bit fair that the Lady Cassandra's body was failing her now.

Well, it wasn't a _body_ so much as it was a large portion of skin stretched across a steel frame and connected to the jar that contained her brain. And it wasn't _failing_ so much as it was just incredibly inconvenient to her, but honestly, seven hundred and eight plastic surgery operations should have given her something that in the very least could go ten minutes without someone having to mist her down like an amphibian. Her little mishap on Platform One – which she was only just now recovering from, over a decade later – left her painfully away of the risks this form carried with it: for example, the fact that a bit of heat could make her shrivel up and explode into bits of dust. Besides, the whole steel frame situation was so horribly industrial. She was finding herself in the mood for something a bit more…_organic._

Upon her request, Chip had set about building her a psychograft machine capable of transferring her consciousness into the body of a willing host. Or an unwilling host. Or an un_suspecting_ host. To be honest, the only real criterion for the host was that they be thin and blonde. They didn't even have to be female – it had been quite some time since Cassandra had male genitalia of her own, and she was willing to give it another go.

However, her new host was not going to be found in the year 5,000,000,012. Not here on New Earth, populated with bastardized monstrosities that liked to call themselves "New humans" although they were barely that. Cassandra would shudder at the thought if her skin frame had the capacity to shudder – she herself was the last _real _surviving human and frankly anything else claiming to be her equal was a blatant insult. They had _mingled_. But she hadn't. She had managed to find not one but several human husbands, thank you very much, which the mongrels had apparently failed to do. No, she had to go back in time, back before the rest of the human race had died out. Earth had officially fallen to shit back in the 100,001st century when the last of the humans evacuated, but it had been contaminated by _others _long before that. If she was to find a suitable and purely human host, she would have to travel into the very ancient past.

"Chip!" Cassandra called. The clone rushed to her side, bobbing his head in a series of adoring bows. His worship of the Lady Cassandra would almost be endearing if it weren't so irritating.

"Does the mistress require anything?" he breathed, spritzing her with moisturizer.

"Chip, upon wracking my brain…" She paused to look fondly down at the jar containing her brain. "…Upon wracking my brain I have come to the conclusion that in order to find a suitable host body, we must travel back to a time before the Earth was corrupt. Before World War V, in fact – I want to aim for the 49th century. Can you arrange that for us, Chip?"

"Yes, milady," Chip assured her effusively. "I will secure means of time travel for the mistress…" He wandered off, speaking softly to himself. Cassandra smiled smugly. Finally, a chance to escape this immobile state – the price one pays for thinness. She'd get back at the Doctor and his little blonde girlfriend, and she wouldn't be as easily blown up this time.

Later, when Chip returned, he held out three leather wristbands.

"Vortex manipulators, milady."

She narrowed her eyes at them. "Oh, well, if that's the best you can do. Strap them on." Chip secured one vortex manipulator to Cassandra's frame, one to the psychograft, and finally one to his own wrist. He placed a hand on each of the former two.

"Is the mistress ready?"

"Yes, yes. Activate them!" Chip nodded and pressed the buttons quickly before pressing his own.

There was a flash and an unpleasant tugging sensation, and when Cassandra opened her eyes she found herself in a forest. The psychograft had attached itself to a tree, clever thing that it was, and was whirring patiently beside her. She looked around as much as her limited range of peripheral vision would allow.

"Chip?" She began to panic. "Chip? Oh, sweet Lord, now is a time when I wish I had arms. _Chip?_ Oh, pet, where are you?" Thank God the air was damp, or else she'd have dried out by now. But she wouldn't last much longer without being moisturized.

There was a decent bit of shouting going on in the woods, she noticed. It grew closer, and was accompanied by flashes and sparks and horrid bangs like a primitive fireworks display. The crowd caught up to her, and soon she was surrounded. The figures all wore long black cloaks and their faces looked like skulls made of metal. Perhaps they were robots. And they were all too busy throwing sparks at each other to pay her any attention.

"Excuse me—!" she tried to interject. "Oh, for God's sake, can someone at least roll me out of the way?" She shrieked as a stream of gold sparks flew right past her eyes. "Watch where you're shooting those things! Look at you all, running around in costume and behaving like savages—"

Just then, a wayward blast struck the lever of the psychograft. Before she had a chance to protest (which would have accomplished absolutely nothing, for the record) her consciousness left the stretched-out bit of flesh that she called a body, and was transferred itself into the body of one of the figures standing in the way of her machine. The force of the transfer knocked the body – _her_ body now – to the ground, and her old flesh dissolved before her eyes.

She didn't have a chance to explore her new body, because another one of the figures promptly grabbed her by the arm and transported her out of the forest.

"Oh, what a crude means of teleportation, I feel like I've been squeezed through a syringe," she huffed, and then registered that her voice was male. High-pitched, but distinctly male. "Oh! Fetch me a mirror, quick!" As her new little friend scurried off to obey her, she wiggled her long, thin fingers in front of her eyes. "_Fingers,_" she breathed, amazed. "Oh, and arms as well!" She brought her hands up to her face and realized that the metal skull was nothing more than a mask. She lifted it off her face as the other creature returned with a mirror. No, wait, this was a new person – distinctly a person, albeit a squat little thing with a face like a rodent. He offered the mirror to her.

"My Lord," he murmured.

"Mm, '_Lord_,' I quite like that," she mused, holding the mirror up. Then she gasped. "I haven't got a nose!" She pointed at the little fat man accusingly. "You, there! Why haven't I got a nose?"

He looked stricken. "M-My Lord…" he stammered. "The—The journey you took to greatness, it… It did change your appearance, my Lord. It is the price to be paid for immortality…" He trailed off, cowering. She hummed, satisfied, and prodded at her new face with her new fingers.

"No hair, either. But very pale, and rather slim as well." She peered closer. "What unusual red eyes – I look like a snake! Not much by way of ears, either. Such progressive cosmetic surgery on this one." She was talking mostly to herself, but the little man was listening and looking increasingly more distressed. She turned to him, and he flinched. "What year is it?"

He faltered. "Y-Year, my Lord?"

"Yes, yes," she snapped. "What is the year?"

"It's… It's 1997."

Cassandra shrieked. "Is that even possible? Was there even _civilization_ in 1997?" The man stammered, unable to answer (or even really understand the question), but she had already moved on. Hiking up her sleeve, she examined a tattoo on her forearm: a snake emerging from the mouth of a skull. She sighed. "Ugh. The skull motif is getting a little overdone with you people, isn't it?" She traced the tattoo with her finger – and almost instantaneously, there was a loud crack and a crowd of black-cloaked masked figures appeared in the room. Cassandra was greeted with murmurs of "my Lord" and the crowd congregated in front of her, as if waiting for her to do something.

She surveyed her new entourage, pleased, and then clapped her hands together decisively. "Right, then. Everyone take your masks off, I want to see you." There was no hesitation, dozens of pairs of hands reached up and removed dozens of masks. They weren't the most attractive lot, but they all seemed to be standard-issue human. And, she couldn't help but note, they all had noses.

She could barely access the surface memories of her body's previous owner. Whoever he was, his mind was sealed off and even a personality as strong as Cassandra's couldn't penetrate it. She couldn't even get a name, but what she could get was a sense that this body was a very good match for her. She felt – though she may be overdramatizing – that the body's original owner shared some deep core values with her. And he certainly did know how to command the attention of a room. The crowd was still waiting, watching her every move. She cleared her throat.

"So…" She searched for something to say that wouldn't betray her confusion. "How did everything go?" Perhaps she would gain some insight about the incident in the woods.

They collectively hesitated, glancing sideways at each other, waiting to see who would speak first. A woman broke free of the herd and strode toward Cassandra.

"My Lord," she breathed, gazing up at her. The uninhibited adoration in her heavy-lidded eyes made Cassandra shiver in a way that she hadn't been physically able to in a very long time and she quite missed. "My Lord, I am so glad to see you well. After that explosion in the forest—Not that I'm implying that you're weak, my Lord, but I feared—"

Cassandra grabbed the woman by the back of the head and kissed her flush on the mouth. Being inside a male body came with a new set of needs to deal with, and besides, she had no idea how to respond to what this woman was saying and she hadn't really been paying attention anyway.

"Right," she said decisively and shoved the now-breathless dark-haired woman aside. The room was dead silent. She snapped her fingers at the little fat man, who was crouched in the corner with eyes as wide as saucers. "You. Bring me back to that place in the forest, there's something I need to retrieve."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Actually…" she paused and looked around the room again, singling out a tall man with long, pale blonde hair. "You bring me." She had grown tired of this strange body and wanted to try on one that was more traditional. The man stepped forward and, taking Cassandra by the arm, transported them both back into the forest.

With a deep exhale, Cassandra transferred her consciousness out of the current body and into the new one. Unfortunately, this freed the mind of Lord Voldemort, who had been all too aware of the other presence that had invaded his body. He turned on her, brandishing that odd little stick that all of these people seemed to carry.

"What _are _you?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous. Panicking, she transferred back into his body. The other man – whose name, she had gathered from his mind, was Lucius Malfoy – steadied himself against a tree.

"What the hell is going on here?" His face was half confused, half enraged.

Cassandra sighed. "Oh, this is all rather exhausting." She pointed the stick at Lucius – not that she could even imagine how it was to be used, but he didn't know that. It was enough of a threat to keep him at bay. As she contemplated her next move, like a gift from above, Chip appeared.

"Oh, Chip, thank goodness." Before he had a chance to explain that he tracked her teleportation signature back to the forest and couldn't be happier to have finally found her, she exhaled herself into his body.

"It's been a delightful evening, gentlemen," she assured them as they both raised their sticks at her in bewildered fury. "But I simply must fly. Ta-ta!" And she hit the button on the vortex manipulator, not really caring where she ended up as long as it was not longer here.


End file.
